Miami Herald - June 1, 2007
John Dorschner, jdorschner@MiamiHerald.com

In what may be the first major case of a South Florida healthcare fraud operation moving north, eight Miami-Dade residents were arrested Thursday, charged with running a clinic in Belle Glade that bilked state and federal governments out of more than $5 million.

"We think they may have been trying to fly under the radar," said Luis R. Martinez, a statewide prosecutor.

He believes the accused might have decided it was easier to work out of Belle Glade, a town of 15,000 near Lake Okeechobee, rather than South Florida, where many investigators are trying to curtail healthcare fraud that has been estimated to be as high as $1 billion a year.

David O. Brockmeier, a lieutenant in the attorney general's medicaid fraud control unit, said investigators suspect that those committing healthcare fraud are "progressing up the state," to avoid the South Florida limelight.

In the case announced Thursday, leaders and some employees of the Belle Glade Family Health Group were accused of using a popular South Florida fraud tactic, recruiting AIDS/HIV patients and giving them unnecessary vitamin shots while billing Medicare, the program for the disabled and elderly, and Medicaid, the program for the poor, for expensive treatments.

In Broward and Miami-Dade scams, homeless persons with AIDS/HIV have been reported to receive kickbacks of $100 to $300 each they they visit suspect clinics, which bill Medicare and Medicaid for injections that cost up to $6,000 per session.

In the case of Belle Glade, a town with many poor migrant workers, the kickbacks were only $25, with $100 going to a recruiter, Mary Lucey, a Palm Beach County resident who's about 69, according to investigators.

Lucey is cooperating with prosecutors, Martinez said.

The arrests were announced at a Miami press conference led by Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum. He said the charges involved "a complex criminal organization... .

"This is a message case," McCollum said, intended to show, along with federal arrests in a $56 million fraud case last week, that state and federal law enforcement tend to vigorously pursue healthcare fraud.

Arrested Thursday were Hortensia Escoto and her husband, Ricardo Escoto; Blanca Marquez and her sister Emelina Marquez; Zoraida Bayon; Maria Ponceleon; Dinorah Mateu and Luis Diaz, according to McCollum's announcement.

Still at large are clinic owners Nieves Delgado and her husband, William Alvarez, as well as Jacqueline Reigosa. With Lucey's scheduled arrest, that makes a total of 12 facing charges of racketeering, organized fraud, money laundering and grand theft, according to prosecutors.

If convicted, each faces up to 105 years in prison.

Prosecutors allege that much of the fraudulent proceeds were laundered through London Check Cashing, which had an office in Little Havana and later in Homestead.

According to an affidavit filed in the case by state agent William Sampson, two doctors were prescribing the expensive therapies for the Belle Glade clinic.

One was Salomon Levin, a West Palm Beach doctor who told investigators that he didn't treat HIV patients at the clinic. Still, the clinic billed Medicare about $2.75 million under Levin's provider number, according to the affidavit.

The other was Kenneth Rivera-Kolb, a Melbourne doctor who did see HIV patients, according to the affidavit, and prescribed a "plan of treatment" after doing blood tests. About $3.85 million was billed to Medicare for infusion treatments using Rivera-Kolb's provider number, agent Sampson stated.

State records show that in April 2006 Rivera-Kolb signed a consent agreement with state regulators in which he promised to pay $30,000 fine and accept two years probation for allegations concerning improperly prescribing drugs and failing to show prudent care in treating a patient.

In 2002 The Miami Herald reported that Rivera-Kolb, who once had an addiction practice in Davie, was suspected of writing prescriptions without seeing patients for various Broward-based websites. No charges were filed in that case.

Prosecutors said Thursday they wouldn't comment on whether the doctors might face legal action.

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